In New Jersey, Good Crisis Management Has Mitigated Sandy’s Impact

Prior to Sandy’s landfall, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had brutally attacked President Obama’s leadership credentials in his keynote address at the Republican convention. And President Obama was focused on his re-election campaign, increasingly attacking Republican positions. But a crisis makes strange bedfellows, and this week, these political enemies together toured the damage, comforted victims, and publicly thanked each other for their leadership and help.

In the aftermath, pundits sneered at the so-called “bromance” between the Governor and the President. But overcoming differences is a form of grown-up behavior that has been missing in a number of very public and vitally important crises that affect government and business.

All leaders are challenged by crisis. Here are four additional things Obama and Christie have done to mitigate Sandy’s impact that too many leaders caught up in a crisis overlook:

1. Communicate immediately and clearly. During the storm, the President was calling governors and other officials in affected states to stress the administration’s support and to hear about their needs. He communicated to the American public and ensured the availability of information about first responders, the number of FEMA officials deployed to the field, where and how to file claims, and other facts that, in the past, often took much longer to learn. Compare this with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when, for nearly five days, thousands remained stranded as federal, state, and local authorities fought over jurisdiction, response measures, and resources — or consider the poor response by Japanese leaders in the aftermath of the tsunami and resulting nuclear disaster.

2. Directly assess the impact. By touring some of the hardest hit areas, the President and the Governor were able to personally witness the physical scale of the calamity and the human toll. Written reports to leaders are not an adequate substitute for first-hand observations. Imagine how Penn State would have handled their sexual abuse crisis differently had senior officials sought out — and empathized with — the victims.

3. Establish and communicate clear expectations for your workforce. The President directed federal employees to return all calls within 15 minutes. He also ordered them to figure out how to say “yes” instead of “no” to requests for aid, even though “no” is often the default response since “yes” often requires going out on a limb. Giving clear directives like that is critical in any large bureaucracy — be it government, business, or an academic institution. Decades after the Challenger explosion, it is still haunting to consider whether clearer communications could have prevented that tragedy.

4. Set priorities among conflicting demands. Consider the demands on both the President and the Governor a week before the presidential election. Each hour of the closing days of the campaign are critical, and the clamor for the candidates — and their surrogates — to race through swing states is intense. There is no doubt that both were urged to seize the moment to gain partisan advantage. They both chose to focus in a clear-eyed way on disaster relief, and in so doing, demonstrated bipartisanship to a nation desperate for their leaders to act like grown-ups. Contrast their actions with those of then-BP CEO Tony Hayward, who seemed more focused on shifting the blame than on capping the well.

Governor Christie’s response to those who criticized his outspoken appreciation of the President’s support was both characteristic and telling: “If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics then you don’t know me.” What the country needs now is for this response to serve not as an isolated incident of bipartisanship, but as a blueprint for moving the country out of gridlock.